Final
by Objective Mistress
Summary: Everything has an end. Amon has an end. The Equalists have an end. Korra has an end. As all the Avatars know all too well, fate is impossible to sidestep.


**AN - Hey there everyone! So I'm finally dipping my toes into writing for Korra, and we'll see what happens! Hopefully I'll be sticking around writing for this fandom, so I need to start somewhere! I really couldn't help myself on this one; I had to take a stab at it! **

**Inspired by madeofcola's sad little comic.**

Disclaimer - I do not own Legend of Korra, or much of anything really. Don't remind me.

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She let out a shaky breath, unaware how long she had held it pressurized within her. She didn't want to look. Looking would make it real and inevitable. She didn't need that. She didn't want that. Yet, her wetted hand was plastered to her abdomen out of only human reflex to the seeping gash. Korra slid down the wall, feeling the roughed texture of it until her body reached an all too final stop when she hit the floor.

Amon was dead. It wasn't her ideal solution, but it happened all the same. She had just acted, crushing and shredding in every which direction.

Between Tarrlok's Task Force and Chief Bei Fong's metalbending police, the Equalists were losing ground. Just as a cornered gorilla goat claws out at its hunters, the Equalists did the same. There were dead. There were wounded. There were missing. But most of all, there was this; Amon's last stand. With their industrial suppliers cut off, they began to lose steam and became desperate, clawing and trying to twist out of their fate. As all the Avatars know all too well, fate is impossible to sidestep.

There was this: a final all out attack on benders, and any non-bender who happened to be in the way. Then there was destruction.

Korra leaned her head against the wall behind her breathing slowly. She felt a tug at her eyelids and an overwhelming urge to sleep. Energy seemed to seep out of her leaving her utterly drained. It wasn't her first and last foray into the Avatar State that left her that way; it was the shock stick protruding from her midsection.

Here she was, alone in the wasteland of her own unwitting doing; alone as the Avatar is with tremendous, world-shaking burden. No one was there to catch her when she fell from that suspended state in the sky. At least the last of Amon-generated pain would be finished with her passing.

It was over. "It" in the sense of Amon's terrifying antics, and her own time. Korra mentally accepted this. But that didn't mean she was interested in creating more suffering, to herself included, by ruminating over that unchangeable fact. At least she could rest in that.

"Mako! I think she's over here!"

The coarse shout registered fully with her, her eyes struggling to stay open.

The figure scrambled over to her, kicking up rocky rubble in his haste.

"K-Korra?" Bolin froze in front of her, his eyes locked on presumably on her blood drenched shirt. "A-Are you-"

No.

"Bolin, go get help," Mako said, his voice laced with uncertainty. "Go now!"

No. Not Bolin. Not Mako. Couldn't she just do this on her own? Neither of them deserved to witness this; to live with it for the rest of their lives because she certainly wasn't going to make it much longer.

Mako knelt beside her, close enough that her blurring vision could still see his familiar visage clearly.

"You're going to be just fine," one of his hands cupped her face gingerly, lifting her chin so their eyes met. "You've just got to hang on for me, okay?"

She swallowed hard, tasting salty viscous liquid begin to well in her throat.

"Okay!" He repeated, shaking her just enough to cause her to whimper feebly from the shooting pain that spread like lighting from her gut.

Korra watched as his thinly veiled calm gave way a bit more at this, and gave her a glimpse at the terror behind his amber eyes. Oh Mako, the firebender ever so calm and cool under pressure, whether a pro-bending match or a tangle with Chi-blockers. But this, this was different. She had known him long enough now to see that he was barely holding himself together; he was doing it for her own sake.

"I'm going help you, okay?"

She nodded.

With slightly shaking hands, he reached down to grasp the now deactivated shock-stick. The remembered electrical burn that brought her from her glowing powered state was still fresh in her mind, and evident in her throbbing body.

"Gah!" she cried at his slight touch to the instrument. "It hurts…" she coughed, blood dribbling from her lower lip.

Mako released the stick, his eyes still trained on the wound she had yet to look at. He wiped his hands on this jacket, staining it with her blood, before bringing his hands back up to her face and drawing close.

"Is it bad?"

"No, it's fine! Fixable, you'll be good soon just keep your eyes open."

She knew he was lying. He was never really ever good at slighting the truth. The way in which he'd cross his arms, deny it profusely, and refuse to meet her eyes gave it away every time.

Life was about facing things. Facing Amon, facing airbending, and now facing this. Korra tilted her head down, venturing a glance to the damage. Instinctively, she slammed her eyes shut and grit her teeth. It was bad. Boy was it bad. Every doubt about what she was heading left her mind.

"Hang on! Bo's gonna find us with help! You're tough. Tougher than anyone I know. You can hang on! You have to…"

She opened her eyes again only to look into his. "It's okay Mako, I've done my job."

A cascade of emotions broke through his previously calm façade. "Korra don't say that! Remember? I still owe you a drink. I still have to buy you a ton of roses. Take you out to dinner and to places you haven't been…we need more time for that!"

Fear. Pain. Unwillingness. Terror. Regret. Loss. They were all there, written.

"I-I- you and I, I think we were meant for each other-" a tear sprung from the corner of his eye. Or it could have been just a droplet of the sweat that drenched his face.

"Hey, I said that ages ago," she smiled weakly at the memory.

"Yes, yes you did," he smiled back.

"You remembered?"

"How could I not?"

"B-but, I…hated that day," her vision grew more unfocused. All she could see was him. "I was so stupid. So impulsive. I'm so-"

"I was stupid Korra…I was the one not you. Don't you dare blame yourself for anything!" He was definitively crying now. "You always try to do that. Shoulder everything yourself. T-This one is on me."

His eyes flicked away from her eyes to her side. He had noticed the alarmingly large pool of blood beside her. He now knew what she had accepted: this would be over soon.

They looked at each other for a long moment, the sound of medical Satomobile sirens and the cracking of a damaged Republic City fading into an unimportant background. How many more moments did they have? This was her moment, it had to be. This, all that was left, was all that mattered now.

"I never told you I love you," she whispered. "I always wanted to…"

"I love _you_. So please, stay with me."

"You know I can't…"

Silence reigned again.

"Hey, Mako?"

"Don't make me promise anything Korra! I don't know if I can handle it…"

"You really don't have a choice…deal with it. Find the next Avatar for me, will you?"

"I-I promise. Anything for you."

Korra smiled one final time. "I love you-"

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